Statuette of Harpocrates (c. 50 BCE): Art, History and Details

Statuette of Harpocrates (c. 50 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Combining Hellenistic naturalism with a finger gesture associated with childhood in Egyptian tradition, this young figure represents Harpocrates, the Greek form of the Egyptian child sun god Horus, or Hor-pa-khred. A hole atop his head likely once held a double crown of Egypt, as on more traditionally Egyptian representations of Harpocrates.

Object facts

• Title: Statuette of Harpocrates
• Date: c. 50 BCE
• Culture: Greece, Greco-Roman Period, late Ptolemaic Dynasty
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze, hollow cast, with silver inlays
• Dimensions: Overall: 27 x 10.2 x 8.6 cm (10 5/8 x 4 x 3 3/8 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1972.6

A detail from the museum

The gesture this figure makes refers to the Egyptian hieroglyph for child, nn, 𓀁.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, and Arielle P. Kozloff. An Introduction to the Art of Egypt in the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: [The Museum], 1970.
• Cooney, John D. "Harpocrates, the Dutiful Son." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 59, no. 10 (1972)
• Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1972." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 3 (1973)

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.